#BLM: A Commentary On Performative Activism

Diana Lubwama

6.23.20

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The country’s been thrown into a frenzy. Another black man has been killed by the police. “I can’t breathe!” he pleads as he struggles to take his last breaths. But as he laid there dying, little did he know his outcry for help would become the catalyst for an entire movement.

Social media’s in an uproar. People are furious. How could we let something like this happen in this day and age? Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are flooded with endless posts, tweets, reposts, and retweets saying the same thing:

We Need Change.

“Don't let history repeat itself!” And yet it did, time and time again. In fact, so often that another almost identical movement was started six years later for the same reasons. You probably thought the situation I’ve been discussing was the current Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, but some of you may be shocked to find that everything I just described occurred in 2014. 

Let me tell you that first story again but with more detail this time. On July 14, 2014, Eric Garner, an unarmed, non-resistant black man was mercilessly held in a chokehold by a white New York City police officer as he pleaded for his life. Allegedly (since federal prosecutors did not charge the officer based on evidence discrepancies), Garner’s dying words were, “I can’t breathe”.  

From that point on, the country was sent into a brief frenzy. America became divided into two sides. Those who advocate for black lives, their slogan being Black Lives Matter, and those who felt that the issue was not black lives mattering but all lives being held as equal, hence All Lives Matter. 

The notion that the latter failed to acknowledge, however, was that within the context of society at the time, all lives couldn’t matter until black lives mattered. And for that reason, conflict erupted not just on the streets of American cities all over the country but on timelines of social media feeds all over the world. 

Many on the side of Black Lives Matter activists found themselves turning to social media as a method of “doing their part” for the movement, and although these simple actions were able to draw much-needed attention to the issues of racism, systemic oppression, and police brutality in the United States, there was one thing that they failed to bring: change.

We live in an era when social media has manifested itself into almost every part of our lives, but what some fail to realize is that there’s a fine line between posting on social media in order to appear to be “woke” and “politically correct” and actually being on the side of the oppressed. This takes me into exactly what I’d like to discuss with all of you who are reading this now: the concept of performative activism and why it’s such a problem in society today. 

Time after time, we find that movements like this occur and, for a moment, it appears that we might get change. But sooner or later, many of these self-proclaimed social media activists return to the same microaggressions that feed into the flame of injustice in the first place. If we want to reach a point where everyone in the nation can live without fear of being ridiculed or even killed for the color of their skin, yes, it’s going to take a lot of action at a higher level (e.g. -  criminal justice reform, legislation that restricts police brutality, and potential redistribution of government funds), but it’s also going to take a lot of self-reflection and change on the part of the constituency of our nation.

On June 2, 2020, there were over 100 million posts made across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok for the latest social media “trend”: #BLM. And yet many of the petitions made with the purpose of achieving justice for black Americans have barely reached 10 million signatures.

Many of the people posting #BLM as if they care about the movement will inevitably return to their old ways (posting “normal” content again) and continue with their ignorant microaggressions (examples: using racial slurs and/or not holding friends and family accountable for using racial slurs, checking their bags for their wallet or purse as soon as they pass a black person on the street, etc.) once this “trend” has ended.

And many of the black individuals in our nation who have been taken advantage of by the system ultimately won’t receive justice because not enough was done in order to have their perpetrators held accountable. It’s too often that type of movement stays in the news cycle for about a week before a majority of the self-proclaimed social media “social justice warriors” get tired and revert back to the normal Instagram feed of sunset pictures on the beach.

The issue with performative activism is that we convince ourselves that by posting a simple black screen or posting a photo of a dead black man and a hashtag on our feeds, we are making a change. Yes, this brings much-needed attention to atrocities within our nation, but after a certain point, it’s not the attention that these injustices need - it’s action.  

And so I encourage all of you to close out of this tab on whatever device you’re reading it on and go do something about the issues that you see in your world. If you can’t attend a peaceful protest, then make donations. If you can’t make donations, then sign petitions and reach out to our state and local lawmakers. We need to do everything we can in order to stop this endless cycle of injustices occurring, the world caring about them for a few weeks, and then going back to life as normal.

Black lives matter beyond the news cycle.

Black lives matter beyond one week.

Just because the social media frenzy has died down doesn’t mean that the oppression that sparked it has ended too. 

I’d like to remind you that every single one of us has the power to make a change. What separates us into performative and authentic activists, however, is what we do with that power. 

Don’t let this movement be in vain.